Memories of a Future
by Well-Well
Summary: Sequel to "The Irony of It All". Two years have gone by, and things have relaxed in Retroville. But when Jimmy follows a lead that might clear up the past, he finds himself facing the worst of perils. How can Jimmy save the world if it doesn't exist? JC
1. James Isaac Neutron!

Hey all! It's been like forever! I'm back today with a sequel to my other Jimmy Neutron story, _The Irony of It All_. I've had some time this summer and I figured I could throw out the first installment of the tale's continuation.

If you happen to have read _The Irony of It All_, then this chapter should bring you up to speed and remind you something about the plot.

Just as a forewarning for this quick readers, **IF YOU HAVEN'T READ _The Irony of It All_, you will find yourself VERY confused**. I recommend you read it! I hear it's good… .

Check out my author page to read the prequel.

And without further ado, here's the first installment to _Memories of a Future_. Enjoy!

… … …

Chapter 1: James Isaac Neutron!

The car pulled into the driveway of the long-abandoned factory, its broken windows and vine-plagued walls looming above. Painted in faded purple letters, sun-bleached and weather-worn, was "_Purple Flurp: Live on the Flurp side of life." _It was an old slogan from a handful of years back; no one had bothered removing the lettering from the worn concrete. As the car rounded the final curve and rumbled through the rusted metal gates with ragged and frayed _Caution_ tape fluttering in the breeze, the dull hollow of desolation seemed to mute the summer night, so that the only sound was that of the car's engine and tires rolling over cracked blacktop.

These were details of the old factory that Jimmy hadn't noticed two years ago, when he had first laid eyes on it in the custody of a mad man—shoved unwillingly into the back of a school teacher's sedan and told he would die here, within the walls of this abandoned place. Now it looked no different, if for a few more weeds here, a few more cracks in the asphalt there.

Jimmy couldn't help but shudder. He parked the car by the lounge entrance, cutting the engine and stepping out of his mom's coupe. Trotting behind him came his trusty dog, who approached the old scene just as nervously as his master. The silence was complete except for the low moan of the wind through the giant factory and the occasional whirring of Goddard's metallic joints. Jimmy gulped. This was, he decided, the last place on earth he really wanted to be. _But it's the only place_, he thought, _that could have answers._

What seemed like eons ago, Goddard had neatly cut out the door with his high-power laser. The gaping hole now stood like an entrance to a cave, its inside dark and silent. The cloudy day did little to reveal anything beyond a few dusty floor tiles. Jimmy turned to Goddard and grimly nodded. The dog barked and produced from his back compartment a small spotlight, which he dutifully aimed into the lounge. "Well, boy," Jimmy said, "I suppose we have nothing to worry about." Goddard whined in response. "It's been ages since anyone's even thought of this place… The scariest thing we can expect out here is a spider or two." Goddard growled, shaking his head and taking a step toward the entrance. Jimmy, taking a deep breath, followed his dog's lead.

The inside of the factory lounge looked much unchanged; the chair Jimmy had once been tied to had toppled over, and the only other furniture in the room was a worn table, some low shelves, and cooking area. A teapot sat on an old stove; Jimmy expected the water to still be in it. He shuddered.

Goddard brought the spotlight in full circle around the room, giving Jimmy a full view, before resting the beam on one of the shelves in a corner. Jimmy strained his eyes against the glare. "Turn it down a bit, Goddard." Immediately the light dimmed, and Jimmy made out what appeared to be a book leaning at an angle in the shelf. As he moved closer, the book turned into a photo album. Jimmy grinned. "This is it!"

Opening the dusty book carefully so as not to break the binding, Jimmy turned to what appeared to be a title page. "Memories of a Future" it read. Jimmy was about to turn past the title page to what he expected were dozens upon dozens of photographs. However, he managed to stop himself. He could review the photographs later. But he had found it! "Goddard, this is—"

Suddenly, Goddard's light switched off. The room was plunged into darkness, save the splotch of daylight that marked the exit across the room. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he turned around slowly, heart thrumming. Silence. He licked his lips.

"Goddard…?"

Immediately the light returned, but it was focused somewhere else. "Bark, bark!"

Jimmy rushed across the room, nervous but curious about what Goddard had found. He nearly dropped the photo album he carried in surprise when he came upon the rusted shell of another dog. Gears creaked eerily as the head slid up to look at Jimmy. He drew in a short breath. "Holy Heisenberg, it's… it's _functional_?"

The damaged, barely mobile dog emitted three glitched, mechanical sounding barks. Jimmy was somewhere between bewilderment and trepidation. He was not shocked by Skylar's condition, for two years' worth of disrepair and exposure to the elements would render any machine rusty and immobile. No, he was terrified that she was here, on this planet, in this _dimension_, at all, when the _real_ Skylar was back in the suburbs of Retroville. Jimmy had seen her just that morning, beautifully polished and fully functional.

Slowly, almost painfully, a compartment opened on the back of the rusted creature. With metal grating against metal, a screen slowly creaked out and stopped, halfway emerged, so that Jimmy had to bend to read it.

_Hello_ _Jimmy,_ it read. _Analysis concludes: Something is terribly wrong._

…

Jimmy paced a trench into the ground just outside the entrance to the lounge. He was relieved to be out of the musty factory and back in the daylight, but he was no less alarmed by what he had found inside. Goddard's head rotated back and forth as it followed his master's mad pacing. The broken and barely functioning Skylar had been placed carefully in the passenger seat of the car. Jimmy had debated for minutes whether to touch her, let alone remove her from where he had found her, but they had already interacted. Skylar had asked a question, and Jimmy had responded to her presence. It was too late to go back. Jimmy figured at the very least, this Skylar could answer some questions. But she was due for some major maintenance.

Beyond that, her presence meant something more… that something was terribly, terribly wrong. Jimmy sighed, the human part of him petrified by what the future might hold, and the genius part of him intrigued at the opportunity to learn more about what happened—rather, what actually didn't happen, two years ago.

Thoughts about that wild adventure brought Jimmy to a stop, his mind whirling at the memories in his head of events that, in the end, never transpired. Thanks to… well, thanks to _something_. That something saved not Jimmy's life, but his existence. That was two years ago. Jimmy stared into the ground, absorbed in the memories, until Goddard nudged his leg.

"Bark bark!"

Jimmy shook his head, smiling at his dog. "You're right, boy. Let's head back. She will no doubt be interested in this."

Together, they returned to the car and left the factory behind them. Jimmy couldn't help but sigh in relief when it disappeared from the rearview mirror.

…

By the time Jimmy turned onto his street, the sky had darkened so that tiny slivers of burnt oranges and reds peeked through the cloud coverage at the horizon. He waived to a few of his neighbors, out for an evening stroll or walking their dogs. Retroville had certainly seen fewer disasters from the boy genius in the past few years. Jimmy liked to think the 'boy genius' had honed his skills, and he was now, as his mother called him, a Little Teen Genius: 'Little' because he Mrs. Neutron liked to think of Jimmy as her little boy; 'Teen' because Jimmy was now seventeen years of age, well-built, and (for the most part) post-pubescent; and of course 'Genius' because he was now, as he was before, a fully licensed genius, with the addition of being recognized by the National Genius Society, sometimes even acting as a political figure for them. He took more precautions before experimenting and conducted his dangerous experiments where no one would be hurt.

Things were good for Jimmy Neutron. Well most things. As he pulled into his driveway, he caught sight of someone peeking through the window of the residence across the street. Jimmy sighed. _Most_ things were good. Not _her_, though.

Jimmy's mother stepped out of the house as he closed the car door, wiping her hands on her apron and smiling at him. He hadn't told his mother that he was going to the factory, but he did get his brains from someone in his family, and Judy Neutron was the most likely candidate. Ever since Jimmy's battle with his radiation-caused illness, Judy had gained an immense amount of confidence in her son. That didn't, however, stop her from worrying.

After the incident two years ago, Jimmy had struggled to keep from examining his regained existence in too much detail. _Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Jimbo_, Hugh had said. He had been given a second chance, and if he delved into the matter any more than that, he might cause trouble for himself and others. He had waited two long years when finally, upon learning the final words of a mercury-poisoned schoolteacher, he deemed it appropriate to investigate.

Corbet had mentioned a photo album, somewhere in the factory, before stumbling off the edge of Jimmy's high school and crashing to his death. It wasn't Jimmy who had heard these final words, and two years had passed before Jimmy heard about them. Jimmy frowned at the thought. In retrospect, it would have been a terrible idea for Jimmy to learn about the album, because of course he wouldn't have been able to resist investigating. It could have gotten him into trouble. It's already gotten him into trouble now, two years later. What kind of trouble? He only dared to guess.

Coming back to the present, he smiled, perhaps guiltily, at his mother, who arched an eyebrow in response.

"You went to the factory, Jimmy?" She had posed it as a question, but Jimmy knew it was more of a statement. "What did you find?"

Jimmy brushed a hand through his shortened, spiked hair. "Two things. One I expected to, one I didn't."

Judy heaved a sigh. "James Isaac Neutron, how many times do I have to tell you?"

Jimmy rolled his eyes. "I knoooow mom, 'don't tamper with things that involve reality and fate of the whole universe', blah-blah, but I didn't 'tamper'—" here he used air quotes for emphasis. "—with _anything!_"

"Well? What did you find?"

Now Jimmy heaved his own sigh. "A photo album, no doubt with some answers."

"That's what you expected. What didn't you expect?"

Jimmy walked around the car and opened the passenger door. "See for yourself."

Judy stepped hesitantly down the front steps and walked around her car. She blinked in surprise when she glanced inside. "Skylar? What happened to her?"

Jimmy shook his head. "No, not the Skylar you're familiar with… this one doesn't belong here." Judy suddenly drew her eyebrows together, as if struck by a horrible thought. Jimmy stiffened. He wondered if she had also realized what catastrophe this finding could mean for them. "What is it?"

"All that rust, all over my seat! Oh, Jimmy this is a new car!"

Rolling his eyes, Jimmy patted his mother on the back. "Don't worry mom, a quick power wash and steam clean will get that right out. I'll take care of it."

"You had better!" She smoothed out her apron. "Now, come inside, I've had dinner ready and you know how your father gets if his blood sugar is low."

Jimmy smiled. For all the implications of impending disaster in his discovery, Jimmy wondered what could really be wrong, when life seemed to move forward as usual.

After a quick dinner, he excused himself from the table and went straight to the lab, where he could get a few machines started on rehabilitating the dilapidated Skylar, who seemed unable to communicate further in her damaged state. In the mean time, he had some business across the street. He checked himself in a mirror briefly, sighed, and headed for the door. "Today it's been a month," he said as he passed Goddard, who was content to snooze on the couch. "Thirty-one days! She has to forgive me by now."

Shifting, Goddard growled his response. _Now that you went and found the album, she'll hate you all over again._

Jimmy put his hand on the doorknob. "Maybe, but I'm hoping she'll be more interested in looking at the album than being angry at me."

Goddard emitted a sort of robotic snort. _Women_.

Jimmy scoffed. "Like you'd know!" The robotic dog ignored him, and Jimmy stepped out of the door into the starry night air, readying himself to face the greatest challenge ever encountered by this boy genius: Cindy Vortex.

…

_Continued in the next chapter: Cindy Aurora Vortex_


	2. Cindy Aurora Vortex

Greetings!

Thanks for the responses:

Genseeker25: Thanks for the support! I hope for this story to be even more intense than the last.

Little Phooey: Hey Noblesse! Long time no see! Glad to see you're still around on FFN. I'm back off to college next weekend, so it might get a little tough, but I promise I'll try! I see this story going great places.

Alright, so the plot thickens…! Hope you readers out there enjoy this one. Review if you feel like it or feel free to ask questions.

… … …

Chapter 2: Cindy Aurora Vortex

Cindy heard a car turn onto the street and casually pulled back at the curtain. When she saw it was Jimmy, she quickly let the curtain slide back into place, releasing a sigh.

"Cindy, dear," her mother called from the kitchen, "leave James alone and come eat dinner."

Cindy stuck out her tongue, even though her mom couldn't see it, and wandered idly across the living room to the kitchen. She found her mother spooning food onto plates and her father setting some glasses down on the table.

Her mother glanced in her direction. "Really, Cynthia, it's been a month." She brought the plates to the table and sat. "_When_ are you going to talk to the boy?"

The blonde did nothing to hide her sour expression. "I wasn't looking for Jimmy." She caught her father rolling his eyes. "What does it matter to YOU two anyway?"

Cindy's father joined Mrs. Vortex at the table and motioned for her to join them. Naturally, being her suborn self, she stood in the doorway and glowered.

"Cindy, honey," her father said, "you've been in an awful mood all month."

Cindy _hmphed_. "He hasn't even called…"

"He's giving you space, darling."

"You began the silent treatment," her father added to her mother's sentiment. "You should be the one to end it." He took a bite of his pasta. "This brings back memories," he told Cindy's mom.

Cindy pouted. "But he—"

Mrs. Vortex waved away her words. "He didn't realize that you were upset, Cynthia. Now that you've had a month to stew, I think it's about time you spoke with him." She took a petite bite of her pasta. "My Cynthia! Playing hard-to-get?"

Mr. Vortex laughed, startling Cindy. "I remember a certain someone playing hard-to-get quite often in her teenage years…"

Mrs. Vortex tossed her head, and Cindy couldn't help the smile that leaked through her scowl.

…

The night passed by slowly. Hushed breezes blew through the open window while Cindy chatted with Libby on the phone. Cindy knew she was trying, but her best friend had so far done little to settle her hurt feelings.

"C'mon, Cin, you know Jimmy doesn't _try_ to hurt you…"

Cindy wanted to scream. That was probably the thousandth time someone had said that to her in the past month. "But he didn't pay _any_ attention to what I was actually trying to say."

"I know, girl," Libby said. "At the very least, you should tell him how you feel and how he hurt you. At least he deserves to know why you're pretending he doesn't exist."

Cindy groaned. "Am I really in the wrong here?"

Libby chuckled. "He _is_ the doofus boy, but you can't hold that against him. You were the one who waited a whole two years to talk about it."

"Because I knew he'd go off looking and prodding and I just wanted the whole nightmare to end."

"Well it obviously hasn't."

"But nothing's gone wrong, everything's been normal." She paused, twirling a strand of hair with her finger. "It's like the whole thing never happened."

"Except it did happen. And you haven't stopped thinking about it. For two years."

Cindy stared blankly at the pink wall of her room. "…Yeah? And?"

Libby 'mm-mmmed' and 'tisked' her disapproval. "And they say _you're_ the genius."

Cindy scowled. "Get to the point!"

"Telling him about your drama-llama then may have relieved you sooner, am I right? Anyway, you've only postponed the inevitable, and not telling him didn't make _nothin' _go away."

Cindy blinked. "So, basically… you're saying… that I'm an idiot."

"Basically, girl."

Cindy let out a strangled noise. "Ugh, I can't believe this. I guess… I should talk to him?"

"Don't get me wrong, Cin, you should still let 'im have it for being a dork."

"Right, right…" Cindy, whether she wanted to believe Libby's logic or not, somehow knew that it rang with truth. She had mulled over the album for a long, _long_ time. "Great, just GREAT."

Now that she thought about it from this new perspective, well… Libby was right. It was about _friggin_ time that she had told him about the album! And Jimmy, eyes so full with concern, had jumped in excitement. That kind of information, _any_ sort of lead that might solve the mystery of the reality that never existed, was exactly what Jimmy had been searching for.

"Jimmy wasn't trying to push you away, Cin," she heard Libby say in the background, the phone call a distant thing now.

But Cindy had needed comfort that month ago. She had wanted to feel safe, rid of her nightmares. Instead of looking first to her needs like she wanted, Jimmy began rattling off the multiple things the album could mean for his research, the dozens of different methods he could use to explore the information, and the hundreds of theories he had come up with when he was too busy being a Dorktron to sleep at night. Cindy, needing his attention more than his ding-dong-sciencey-babble lectures, had been hurt. And Cindy Vortex, Cynthia _Auoroa _Vortex, _does not get hurt_. Which, in line with Vortex protocol, made her angry.

No, not just angry, but _pissed._

And so here they were, one month later, with not one word spoken between them. Oh, there had been some notes from Jimmy in classes. And unanswered phone calls. And doorbell-ringings. And some messages relayed through Skylar (who, after printing out Jimmy's fifth plea, had remarked wryly that she was worth more than 300,000-times the cost of the world's most expensive fax machine and suggested that Cindy purchase one.)

There had been his after-class waits, his on the bus approaches, hours spent sulking on the sidewalk in front of her house—not to mention the daily ploy of communicating through Libby, Sheen, or Carl. All of Jimmy's attempts at goading Cindy to speak with him were dutifully ignored.

But more than anger her, his obliviousness towards her feelings made her question the strange relationship they had developed. Were they even _in_ a relationship? Were they… _boyfriend_ and _girlfriend_? The easy answer was yes, but the actual answer?

After they had reset the future to its original, or at least intended path, and cured Jimmy of his self-caused disease, the two teens were closer than ever before. They could be seen hanging out regularly, sometimes by the boardwalk with ice cream in hand, other times at the Candy Bar in a two-seater booth. The scary part was the smiles they usually had on their faces—Jimmy Neutron and Cindy Vortex _smiling_ together? And it hadn't happened gradually, either, at least not to everyone else; it all started on Cindy's 15th birthday, as though they had spontaneously forgotten their rivalry, the pranks, the name-calling… actually, the name-calling was still around. But Dorktex and Nerdtron were somehow… names of endearment?

Retroville inhabitants had slowly gotten used to the idea, but the two still received weird looks when they were in public together. Most shrugged it off and said, "Well, it's about time!"

Except, Cindy didn't even know what "it" was. They spent time together, but on a relaxed outing or during one of Jimmy's scientific endeavors. She traveled abroad with Jimmy a few months back when the NGS had asked him to make a speech promoting clean energy, and Jimmy had taken her out for dinner. But few things romantic had ever happened between them. Jimmy got her flowers from Venus for her birthdays, homemade "enhanced" chocolates for Valentine's Days, and scarves sewn from the finest fibers in the galaxy for the holidays.

Beyond that? He occasionally expressed how much he enjoyed her company, since Carl and Sheen didn't understand much beyond Ultra Lord, geeking, llamas, and the basics of football. (No matter how many years Carl had played for the Retroville High football team, the idea still struck Cindy as physically impossible.)

He was _fond_ of her. That was all Cindy really got. But it wasn't like she was giving him something he wasn't returning; it seemed completely mutual, this general lack of motivation. Nothing intense, nothing wild or crazy. In fact their affection seemed about as "wild" and "crazy" as it had been just after fifth grade, when for a time they had explored a relationship. It had fallen right back to quibbles and insults, however, when they left ripples of giggles behind them in the middle school hallways. Embarrassed, and too young to understand that the thoughts of their peers didn't matter so long as they were happy, they had reversed the direction their feelings were heading and it had simply been a matter of coming up with new insults, new pranks, and new torments to renew the rivalry.

But even that had slowly settled, and it had become something engrained, just a habit more than actual rivalry.

And then Jimmy found out about Cindy's future, how, driven by despair and depression, Cindy would run away from her family and friends, and die young. Jimmy, deciding he would do anything to save Cindy from her sad future, accidentally sacrificed his health. Jimmy had been dying, and all for Cindy. It changed everything.

At least, maybe it would have, if that adventure-filled, hectic month of Cindy's life hadn't been, for all intents and purposes, erased. That was the problem, really. Her memories of the time were clear, yet… dreamlike. As though while she _knew_ those events had actually happened, there was still a part of her that believed it was all a passing a dream—rather, a nightmare. And still, most of those memories would have been lost if Jimmy hadn't reminded her shortly after his return from death… or, nonexistence.

…Which probably had something to do with _him. _Cindy shuddered whenever she thought about him, that—that _god_.

But that was beside the point. Whether she wanted it to or not, that horrible month did feel like a dream, and… well maybe shehad been the only one to start pushing away. Or backwards, maybe. Or…

_Cindy…?_

Or maybe she had stopped caring somewhere along the way?

_Cindy!_

But what if—

"CINDY."

She blinked, pulling the phone away from her smarting ear. "Ouch! Libbs! What the heck?"

"Well excuse ME, girl, you went and died on me!"

Cindy laughed nervously. "Sorry, Libby, I guess I was just thinking."

"Did you even hear a thing I said?"

Cindy paused. "Um… 'Jimmy wasn't trying to… push me away?'"

"That was like, ten minutes ago." Even over the phone, Cindy could imagine Libby's glare.

Cindy sighed. "Sorry, Libby. I think, I mean, I guess I'll talk to him?"

"Mmhmm. That's exactly what you're gonna do." There was a noise in the background on Libby's side of the call. "Listen, Cin, Sheen's here. We're gonna watch a movie." LIbby giggled suddenly.

Cindy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, _o_-kay. You two have fun."

She hung up the phone in minor disgust. Sheen had brightened up a little, but Cindy would never see what Libby saw in the lanky boy. But then she scoffed at the thought. This was coming from the girl who liked _Spew_tron, after all. Judgment could be made all around.

…

Cindy showered. She spent the time thinking about the hundreds of ways she could start a conversation with Jimmy. No way seemed to fit. She wanted to apologize to him, but she didn't want to just let him off the hook. It would have to be a delicate procedure, she decided.

The shower was short, but it did wonders to clear her head. It was her father's solution for everything: teenage angst? Take a shower. Test tomorrow? Take a shower. Reality threatened to be completely thrown into whack and oh, Jimmy's dying? Take a shower! She smiled as she threw on a robe and wrapped a towel around her hair on the way to her room. Skylar had slipped onto Cindy's bed sometime during her shower. The blue puppy barely flicked an ear at Cindy's arrival and was content to snooze. Cindy wondered what Skylar was actually doing while she rested, considering she was a mastermind, more up-to-date and power-packed than even Goddard. Sparing the puppy an appreciative glance, Cindy got to work brushing out her hair.

It took about a minute, but she became aware of many very tiny _clacks_. It was sporadic, sometimes one _clack_ and then another, sometimes a long pause between them. "What the…" Cindy cautiously approached the window where it was the loudest.

Skylar had raised her head, minor interest in her eyes. She barked and added a little bit of a snuff. Even after owning the robotic dog for two years, Cindy found her ability to understand the puppy less than perfect. Half the time, Skylar would resort to deploying a screen so that Cindy could read what she was saying. But she usually got the general idea: her puppy had said, _It's Jimmy_.

Cindy threw open her window so that the slam echoed into the neighborhood. Sure enough, taking aim with hopeful, now frightened eyes, was Jimmy. He had an arsenal of pebbles at his feet.

Jimmy stared up at her. "Uh… hi."

Cindy raised a brow, amused. She tried to paint a disappointed look on her face, but secretly, she was for from it. "Whadya want, Neutron?"

The fumbling genius scratched his head, comically, Cindy thought. "Can I, uh… come up?"

"Why should I let you, huh?" She rested her elbow on the sill, propping her head in a hand.

This apparently made Jimmy even more nervous than he already was. "Uh… because… because… um…" He shook his head and mumbled something about Einstein.

Cindy stood straight, suddenly. "What am I supposed to tell my parents if you scratched the paint with your stupid pebbles?" she yelled.

"I—"

"And where do you get off thinking you can just bother a girl in the MIDDLE of the night?"

Jimmy seemed pale. "But—"

"Honestly, Neutron, I should call the COPS on you! You just waltz into my yard, throwing rocks at my window—"

"Cin—"

"—and expect me to say, 'Yes, of course Jimmy, darling, come right up to my room!'" She threw her arms up, leaning almost completely out the window now. She wouldn't have been surprised if the whole neighborhood heard her shouting. "What do you take me for, an idiot?"

"I—"

"A dribble-ditz?"

Jimmy pointed toward her. "You're—"

"A bimbo?"

"Cindy, you're going to—!"

"A NINCOMPOOP?" Cindy had leaned forward in emphasis with every phrase, and it was a moment too late that she realized she'd leaned out of the window a bit too far. She began to slip and, unable to stop herself, fell noiselessly from her window.

She didn't even have time to scream. All she saw was the ground rushing toward her. She squeezed her eyes shut, expecting pain, but none came.

When she finally got her wits about her, she realized something was suspending her in mid air. She cracked open an eye, expecting to see Skylar's robotic neck twined around her. Sure enough, she did see Skylar's head, but it was Jimmy who had reached her first. He held her around her waist, five feet off the ground. Skylar withdrew her neck.

Cindy rolled her eyes. "Oh, great. What are you, a super hero now?"

Jimmy blinked at her, somewhat out of sorts and a little breathless. "My hover shoes… you know, from that Macbeth performance way back when. I've taken the anti-gravity thrusters and altered the ejection level so that—"

Cindy blew a strand of wet hair out of her face. "Blah, blah, blah, just put me down!"

Jimmy flew upward slowly, rotating so that Cindy could slide back into her room through the window. She slipped through nonchalantly as though she had to do that sort of thing every day, then marched over to her makeup mirror and returned to brushing through her now very messy hair.

Jimmy hovered just outside her window, staring dumbly at the windowsill. After a minute, he glanced at Skylar, who watched him amusedly, before turning his gaze on Cindy. "Uh…"

"Well?" Cindy said. "Aren't you coming in?"

He glided upward, hovering down through the window feet first. As he landed, he said, "I was wondering, if maybe you wanted to talk?"

She turned around, ready to snap at him, but took pause when she noticed he was carrying something. "Is that… you didn't…"

He stepped forward. "It has answers, I _know_ it does!"

"How long have you had it, huh?" The angry blonde turned her back on Jimmy and ran her brush through her hair with a vengeance. "Bet you didn't last a day after I told you. Bet you didn't even _sleep_ on it!"

"I'll have you know I waited a whole _month_, Vortex!" Jimmy cried, forgetting his reason for coming over.

"In Nerdtron time? A month is like five minutes!"

"I went today! A month is a _month_ in _sane_ people time!"

"Oh so I'M the insane one?" Cindy turned around to face him now, the anger evidenced by the red in her cheeks and the blaze in her eyes. "Can't you just give it a rest? Can't you just let it go?" She stood and marched right up to him, prodding him in the chest with a finger. "It's been two years! I told you about the stupid album because it had been weighing on me, because I wanted you to _help_ me! But you forgot alllll about me, all because of the mystery. 'Oooh, another clue,' that's all YOU were thinking about. This isn't Scooby Doo, you're not wearing an ascot and bellbottoms and I'm not running around with dorky glasses saying 'Jinkies!', for crying out loud! We are NOT 'those meddling kids.' Okay? Why can't we just have normal lives?"

Jimmy looked away from her accusing glare. "I can't just let it go," he muttered.

"Why? Why can't we just leave it behind us?"

"Because…" he said, his voice barely audible. "I have nightmares too."

Cindy wanted to cling desperately to her anger, but it slipped away faster than she could mentally grapple at it. She wanted to just pretend that the horrible events of two years ago never happened, or she wanted them to just… go away. She thought that would fix everything. But… well, it _did_ happen, and it certainly wasn't going away. Jimmy knew that better than anyone. He remembered it even more clearly than Cindy. And he wanted it to go away too, but in order for that to happen, well… he needed to learn more. To figure things out. To solve the unhappy mystery of reality, its limits, its rules and boundaries, and, scariest of all, the consequences of him… no, both of them tampering with it two years ago.

The two teens stood face to face, Jimmy's eyes looking elsewhere, Cindy's heart shoved forcefully into her throat. They stayed like that, Cindy very aware of his soft breathing, the guilty, pensive look on his face, and for whatever reason the broadness of his shoulders. Skylar had slipped out of the room sometime during the fighting, and Cindy remembered how much she missed being with him, just the two of them.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, breaking the silence. "I never meant to hurt you. I was sorta hurt by how you waited to tell me. But I also understood why. Just, not at first. My curiosity was piqued and, well, there was nothing more I wanted to do than look for the album. But I wanted to do it with you. I thought we could do this, you know, together…"

Cindy dropped her gaze to the floor, partly ashamed, partly placated. He had known all along why she was upset. And she foolishly had ignored that her side of things might have upset him in the end.

She let her shoulders droop. "Well… what did you find?"

He glanced at her, confused. "The album?"

"No, what's _inside_, dummy. Are there photos?"

He blinked. "I, uh, haven't looked. I think so."

Cindy was dumfounded. "You mean you've had the album in your possession for more than a couple seconds and you… haven't… looked? Why not"

Jimmy threw up his arms. "I'm so tired of never being able to please you! Everything I do lately is wrong! I thought I should wait for you, but I guess not." He groaned. "You're so confusing, Vortex!"

She shook her head. "No, no! I'm not angry! I'm…" She paused, smiling at him. "I'm impressed."

Jimmy raised his brows in surprise. "Oh."

"Well, open it."

Jimmy walked over to Cindy's desk and set the album down. Cindy followed him, peeking over his shoulder. He pulled back the cover, revealing the title page: "Memories of a Future."

Cindy raised one eyebrow. "Corbet was kind of a dramatic man," she commented.

Jimmy nodded, moving past the cover page. There were photos, probably hundreds of them. At first it was hard to tell what they were. But after turning the third page, both Jimmy and Cindy gasped. They knew _exactly_ what these pictures contained. Cindy felt faint. Jimmy gripped the edge of the desk tightly.

"This is…"

Cindy pointed to a photo. "It's him. It's _him_. How did Corbet get these?"

Jimmy, eyes wide, flipped another page. "Leaping leptons… this is unbelievable." He turned to Cindy. "We should go to the lab and analyze these… also, Skylar might be able to explain a few things."

"Skylar? What would she know?"

"Not your Skylar, but the one I found in the factory."

Cindy drew a breath. "You found another Skylar?"

Jimmy nodded, looking her in the eye. "Not just any other Skylar… the one from the reality we erased."

"What?" Cindy didn't understand. "I thought…"

"We reset reality, effectively returning to the point just before our reality deviated. But the fact that this Other Skylar, 'Skylar O', let's call her, has appeared in this reality, means…"

"It means," Cindy almost whispered, "that realities are… overlapping." And what _that_ meant?

Trouble. Lots and lots of trouble.

…

_Continued in the next chapter: Skylar O_


End file.
